If at First You Do Succeed: Self-Published Books That Made It Big

Every year, more and more books are being published, and it’s partly because of how easy it has become to publish a book yourself. You don’t have to have a printing press; you just need access to a computer! According to Publishers Weekly, self-published titles accounted for 3.5 million of the 4.2 million titles published in 2025. That’s a bananapants number of books!

That means around 700,000 titles were published with traditional publishers last year, and only a very, very small fraction of them sold well, or even a little. And that’s with a publisher backing them. So, imagine how hard it is to make waves with your self-published book in a sea of 3.5 million books.

Today is the last day to enter to win a $250 donation for a library of your choice!

Writing a book is hard work, as is finding a publisher, having your manuscript accepted, marketing it, etc. It’s one of the reasons that authors choose to self-publish their books. There is a stigma that if a book is self-published, it must not be very good, and that’s just not the case. An author may not have any connections; they may have been rejected many times, so they took matters into their own hands; they may want complete control of their work; they may not want to pay for an agent or split their earnings. The list of reasons for choosing self-publishing goes on. Plus, there’s no guarantee that a traditionally published book will do well, either.

That’s why 3.5 million books were released by the authors themselves last year. And against the astronomical odds, every year, two or three of them will break through the noise and become a huge smash hit as a self-published work. And most likely, those few will get snatched up by a traditional publisher and find an even bigger audience, with some also being adapted into films and TV shows.

You’ve probably heard of most of the books that have seen their bestseller dreams come true as self-published works followed by traditional publishing. They include Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, The Martian by Andy Weir, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming, Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, Wool by Hugh Howey, and Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. (“I am selling, Carl!”)

Below are five more titles that did so well as self-published books that they were picked up by a traditional publisher. One has already been adapted and two are being adapted soon. Did you know these were originally self-published? How many of them have you read?

Twisted Love by Ana Huang Ana Huang’s Twisted romance series for adults was a huge hit with BookTok before finding a new home with Sourcebooks’ Bloom Books imprint. Now the steamy four-book series about a group of friends is being adapted by Netflix, with the rights selling in a seven-figure deal.

Reel by Kennedy Ryan This romance novel about a Hollywood star was released in 2021, and then Grand Central’s Forever imprint snatched it up and rereleased it in 2024 (with an additional 7,000-word epilogue) after the success of Ryan’s 2022 Before I Let Go, which is set to be a series on Peacock (with Attica Locke and Tembi Locke as the showrunners!)

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi This is the little book that has been hanging on to the top of the bestseller lists for months now! This story of friendship and miracles was released by Levi in 2023 and rereleased in 2025 by Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books imprint. It was recently announced that Tom Hanks, the king of adaptations, will star in the film adaptation.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden It seems like you can’t move without running into a Freida McFadden title these days, who has something like thirty books to her name now. But did you know a large part of her backlist was originally self-published? Most of those have since been rereleased by a big five publisher, with her most popular book being this thriller, which was turned into a 2025 film with Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried.

Daggermouth by H. M. Wolfe When the dark dystopian romantasy Daggermouth was self-published in 2025, it generated such a buzz on TikTok that Simon & Schuster snapped it up and rereleased it this summer. Shortly before its rerelease, an article in The Atlantic claimed it was partly written by AI, a claim that is being made against more and more books these days. (Wolfe has denied the allegations, and the second book in the duology, Python, is due out in July 2027 from Tor Bramble.)

Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the Book Riot podcast All the Books! and on Instagram and Bluesky.